It is with great pride and a charming Quebec accent that the creators of Meet Your Maker showed us their future game. The developers of Behavior Interactive can be happy, because they got their hands on a rather intriguing concept full of potential: a FPS community coupled with an experience of map maker. Doesn’t that speak to you? Well imagine a Super Mario Maker in the first person with all that implies as good sides.
The accessible and comprehensive editor has it all.
This revelation, we did not have it from the outset during our face to face with Behavior Interactive. The Canadians are also wary of this comparison. Perhaps so as not to be simplistic about the specifics of their project, but also because one of the two pillars of the gameplay has absolutely nothing to do with the game nintendo. To explain it more simply, Meet Your Maker is played in two different but complementary ways. The essence of the game is raids. Looting sessions playable in solo or in pairs during which it is necessary to recover a precious resource, the genetic material or GenMatin the depths of a dungeon then come out.
In the latter there is loot in addition to your objective, but we also find a host of monsters and vicious traps. The first steps in Meet Your Maker make you paranoid. Your character leaves with little ammunition and dies at the slightest damage suffered. To play it legit and avoid dying, the progression then becomes slower and the tension palpable as each corner of the maze becomes more and more threatening.
We liked this high-risk research, while conversely we were more skeptical to learn that Meet Your Maker does not know any form of game over. We don’t question the appearance so much die and retry which can have a certain charm in such a game. CWhat bothers us more is that the levels of Meet Your Maker are not based on the difficulty of its monsters and its traps but their surprise effect. So after several deaths, the challenge (and the fun) offered by a dungeon can completely collapse once the threats have been identified.
Whether with weapons or a little agility, the traps are easily countered, for example, while the monsters are not too violent, nor too hard to neutralize. In their defense, our hero is rather well equipped. We were able to try different melee, support or ranged weapons as well as several improvements. The must is still the grappling hook the character can use to cling to any wall. Note also that the protagonist’s equipment can be improved thanks to the loot recovered within the outposts, the official name of the dungeons, which is also why raids are such a crucial aspect of the game.
It’s not just the hero’s equipment to unlock. You can also find new items to customize your outpost through raid loot. Plot twistthe levels you play in the mode are actually community creations made by other players. A craftsmanship which therefore represents the second game mode. It is not to be put in all hands that said. Level building will only interest the most creative among us. It is all the same a detailed creation where it is possible to customize the smallest part of the wall and where the options, apparently few in number, manage to create a rich experience despite everything.
The title has something to titillate!
Meet Your Maker, for example, only has four monsters, but it is quite possible to add armor to them to make them resistant to certain weapons or even a last stand that makes them explode when they die.. In the same way, it is possible to record a pattern for your monsters to give them an almost human-like behavior. It’s the best we can do since Behavior Interactive deliberately removed all direct control from the dungeon master. We regret a bit this decision which could have brought a welcome asymmetrical gameplay, in addition to a challenge over time.
Still, building an outpost is a great activity in itself, even if you’re not artistic. All this is thanks to the very intuitive interface and tools available to us.. You don’t need to be a modder to bring your ideas to life. And if necessary call a friend, because it is good to note that Meet Your Maker proposes to build outposts for two. It is also better that this mode is open to everyone because the title makes the risky bet to rely mainly on the future creations of its players to have content in the long term.
Our first impressions: Good!
It may not be the same genre, but we maintain that the interest of Meet Your Maker is based on the same cogs as those of Super Mario Maker : build your own levels and play with those of the community. Of course, gameplay side raids have nothing to do. Besides, it’s only on this side that some game design ideas seem unclear to us, starting with the number of unlimited lives. In terms of creation, nothing to complain about. The accessible and complete editor has it all. We can only hope that this argument will be enough to convince the community to create the nuggets that will keep us in the game. In the meantime, the title has something to tickle!
